by Diane Capri
Across the street, Flint stood inside the limited shelter surrounding the entrance to an office building, closed for the night. He turned up the collar on his cheap jacket and shrugged deeper into its meager warmth. He stuffed his hands into the pockets and leaned away from the sidewalk.
Through the window across the street, Flint saw the woman select a few items from the store shelves and then approach the pharmacy counter. She talked to the clerk for a bit. When she turned, she was carrying her purchases in a reusable fabric bag. She left the store and turned to walk back the way she’d come.
Flint let her gain a block’s head start before he followed. The snow-covered sidewalks muffled his footsteps. The icy snow seemed attracted to his warm eyeballs. He blinked away the pelletlike stings.
He could have overtaken her at any time, but he hung back.
When she reached the corner, she turned left. He turned the same corner half a minute later. She was a block farther along, hunched over, watching the ground as she forged ahead.
She didn’t act like a fugitive. No effort to obfuscate her route. No furtive glances, no attempt to disguise herself. True, the olive-drab down parka enveloped her from head to calf, and heavy boots covered her from calf to toe. But the frigid weather demanded protection. Hers was an effective disguise, not a purposeful deception.
She trudged through the unshoveled snow to a house whose front door was painted cheerful Chinese red.
At the landing, she scraped the storm door across the snow-covered concrete landing, pushed the front door open, and walked inside. Saint Leo was the kind of town where people didn’t lock their doors.
The interior of the house had been dark, but she turned on the lights in the downstairs rooms as she passed through, and yellow ribbons spilled out to sparkle the snow. The windows in the upstairs rooms remained dark.
The house was a bungalow with a detached garage. The style and the neighborhood suggested circa 1960. White vinyl siding with black vinyl shutters attached to the sides of the windows that served no useful function. Flint scanned the house and yard once more, just in case someone else was watching. He saw no one.
The Queen Street house was listed as owner occupied. The resident’s name, listed on the census, tax rolls, and utility bills was Leslie Owen. The last census report claimed two women lived here. One would be forty-eight years old now and the other, twenty-seven. Not exactly the right ages for Laura Oakwood and her daughter, Selma. But close enough.
Was this woman Laura Oakwood? If she was, he could get her signature on Shaw’s agreement before the deadline. Complete the job. Make Scarlett look good. Get Shaw and Crane off his back. Go back to his own cases, because the French woman had been patient enough.
But only if the woman was Oakwood. And only if she signed before the deadline.
Would she do it? Normally, giving someone a lot of money they hadn’t been expecting was an easy gig. But this was not a normal case.
He glanced around the empty streets. No pedestrians. No running vehicles.
He marched to the front door, walked up the stairs, and turned the doorknob, like a resident would do. He stepped across the threshold and pushed the door closed behind him.
The front entrance opened into a small foyer. In the right corner was a wooden coat tree. Oakwood’s parka was draped from its top hook. Straight back was the kitchen. The staircase on the right led to the second floor, where the bedrooms probably were. On the left was a living room and, beyond that, a dining room that entered into the kitchen.
The first scent he noticed was the aroma of pine. Probably from a scented candle or a continuous air freshener. The house seemed quiet except for rustling from the kitchen. A moment later, he also heard sounds upstairs. Which meant both women must be home. Maybe Sally Owen had been sleeping in the dark house before her mother came home.
He ducked into the darkened living room, moving quietly on the carpet, hugging the wall. Carefully, he stepped through into the dining room and beyond, until he reached the open doorway to the kitchen.
Laura Oakwood was alone, making dinner. She moved with practiced economy from refrigerator to sink to range, one task to the next. She reached up above the stovetop to press buttons to start the microwave.
She poured two glasses of white wine from an open bottle in the refrigerator. She grabbed both glasses by their stems in one hand and a serving spoon in the other hand and turned toward the kitchen table.
She spotted him. Standing five feet away, inside the open doorway to the dining room. Her eyes widened. She dropped the serving spoon. It clanged on the vinyl floor, splattering tomato sauce across her shoes. She covered her mouth with her forearm as if to stop herself from screaming.
“It’s okay.” He stepped into the open kitchen where she could see him better and held up both hands, palms out. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
She pressed her forearm tighter to her lips, still holding the wineglasses.
In her world, visitors rang the doorbell and called out when they entered, even when they came to deliver good news. Surely, this was her first home invasion. People who had suffered break-ins bought intrusion detection systems after the insult. And kept their doors locked.
He began with a white lie, simply to calm her. “I knocked on the front door, but you didn’t hear me. So I let myself in. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I’m sorry.” He listened to footsteps in the rooms overhead. “Who’s upstairs?”
A small, strangled sound like a whimper escaped from her throat.
“Look, I just want to talk. That’s all. I have some good news for you. Seriously good news. Okay?” He waved an open palm toward one of the kitchen chairs. “Can you take a break from cooking for a minute? Let me tell you why I’m here? I don’t have a lot of time.”
She nodded her head, but her eyes stayed wide as she whimpered again and remained still.
He waved toward the kitchen table, set for dinner for two. She inched forward and pulled the chair away, placed the wineglasses on the table, and sidled onto the hard seat. She’d left herself plenty of room to bolt. As soon as she sat down, her legs began bouncing, staying warm, ready to run.
“My name is Michael Flint. I’m a special private investigator. I have good news for you.” She listened but didn’t speak. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Scarlett Investigations business card. “This is the woman I’m working with. She represents a company that owes you a lot of money. She’s authorized me to pay you.”
She didn’t pick up the card. But she read it. When she saw the Houston address, her eyes widened to the size of plums. She stood up quickly and knocked the chair backward. It clattered to the floor like a sloppy drumbeat, loud enough to overwhelm the small kitchen.
The microwave had finished irradiating the tomato sauce and it beeped, three staccato blasts, as if to punctuate the clamor from the tumbling chair.
He was getting nowhere. Another approach might be more effective. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Glock. “Pick up the chair and sit down.” She didn’t move. “Now!”
She seemed frozen to the floor. He kept the gun pointed at her while he uprighted the chair. He grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of the seat. He put his hand on her shoulder and pressed down. She sat. “Don’t move. Understand?”
She nodded.
He stood across the table in front of her. “Look at me.”
She raised her head, eyes open.
“Can you speak?” She nodded. He waved the gun. “What’s your name?”
She had to clear her throat three times, but eventually she croaked, “Leslie Owen.”
“How long have you lived here in Saint Leo?”
“Seventeen years.”
“Where did you move from?”
“Regina.”
“And before that?”
She balked. “Why?”
Oh, the hell with it. “Because if you are the former Laura Oakwood of Wolf Bend, Texas, you’re about to be a very wealthy wom
an. I’ve got a check with a lot of zeros before the decimal point that belongs to you.” Which was a slight exaggeration, but it seemed like the right thing to say if she needed motivation. “And if you’re not the former Laura Oakwood, I’ll leave now and you’ll never hear from me again.”
The emotions warred on her face. Extreme terror was the most obvious. But he saw a twitch of curiosity around the corners of her mouth and something a little like amazement in her eyes.
Still, she didn’t claim her inheritance.
“Okay. Obviously, I’ve got the wrong person. I’m leaving now. Sorry to have bothered you.” He grinned to lighten the mood, maybe peel her a little bit off the ceiling. “I’ll let myself out.”
He backed out of the kitchen into the dining room and when he reached the living room, he turned to leave. A dozen steps later, he’d reached the foyer.
He stopped.
Oakwood stood in the middle of the small foyer, blocking the front door. This time, she was the one holding the gun.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Laura Oakwood had assumed a perfect shooter’s stance. His mind registered that she’d had some training somewhere.
“Make up your mind.” He raised his hands in the air and grinned again. “You want me to leave or you don’t?”
She didn’t smile. Her tone was a cross between a principal’s and a prison warden’s. “I want to know who you are and why you’re here.”
“I already told you that, Laura. If you want to hear about it, just say so.” He shrugged. “Either way, aren’t you tired of living with your bag packed and your fake passport ready? You’ve been hiding a long time. Nothing lasts forever. It’s time to go home.”
She frowned, but she didn’t lower the gun. “Why would Laura Oakwood come into money now?”
“A lot has happened since you left Texas. Your father died, but you probably know that.” He paused. She didn’t nod or reply. “His ranch sits on the last big untapped Texas oil field.”
She waited, her gun steady.
“There’s some question about who owns the ranch now, but I guess your mother owned the mineral rights and she left them to you when she died.” He was getting a little tired of holding his hands in the air. So he lowered them a fraction and she grunted and shoved the gun barrel his way. He raised his arms again.
“The mineral rights were worthless back then, but they’re not worthless now. Our client wants to buy the field outright. He’s already bought all the other rights. Yours is the last.” He paused and took a breath. “All I need is your signature and you’ll be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.”
“How much?” She croaked the question past her tight throat.
He smiled. Now he had her. When they started asking about the amounts, they were already sold. “Enough to buy whatever you want for the rest of your life. And enough to take care of your daughter forever, too.”
She blinked, as if to clear her head. She didn’t lower the gun. “What does Laura have to do to get the money?”
“She has to prove to me that she’s Laura Oakwood. And she has to sign over her interest in the Juan Garcia Field.” He paused, looking for a sign of recognition when he mentioned the name, but he saw none. “After that, my client doesn’t care what she does or where she does it. All he wants is to buy her interest and pay her an exceptionally generous fifty million dollars for it.”
Her eyes widened and she cocked her head. The number was astonishing. She’d never have expected to see that much money in her lifetime, surely. “And if she doesn’t sign or if you can’t find her?”
“Then she loses all her rights to the Juan Garcia Field, and she will never be able to get them back.” He paused again to be sure she understood. “This is her last chance.”
She blinked again and considered that for a moment. “How will she prove her identity to you?”
“Fingerprints and a DNA sample. Just a cheek swab. Nothing more.”
She lowered the gun, but she kept a firm grip on it. “Come on into the kitchen.” She waved him ahead through the foyer and followed him toward the back.
But before they’d taken many steps, a young woman walked down the stairs. She was the spitting image of the age-progressed photo he had in his pocket of Laura Oakwood at age twenty-seven.
No doubt about it. She had to be Selma Oakwood Prieto.
He’d expected her to look like a younger version of her father’s sister, the waitress at the Wolf Bend Diner. Her Aunt Teresa. But she didn’t. The only evidence of her father’s gene pool was her dark brown eyes, which were fairly common.
“You’re Sally Owen, right?” Flint said, watching her descend the stairs.
“That’s right. Who are you?” Her voice was midrange and pleasant to the ear.
“Michael Flint.” He extended his hand. “Maybe you can join us in the kitchen. What I’m here to discuss with your mom concerns you, too.”
She nodded and walked ahead of him to the back of the house.
Laura turned off the meal she’d been cooking and poured coffee. They sat around the kitchen table. She laid the loaded .38 she’d been pointing at him on the table within her easy reach.
In Flint’s experience, women didn’t generally threaten visitors at gunpoint. Canadians are permitted to own handguns, but storage and use are severely restricted. A loaded handgun lying around, easily accessible, in a private home was not even close to normal.
If her daughter thought the gun situation was the least bit odd, she didn’t say so. Which probably meant she knew something about why Laura engaged in such behavior.
“Sally,” Laura said, tilting her head in his direction. Her tone was snide. “Mr. Flint says he’s here to change our lives.”
“Only if you want me to.” He shrugged. “Although I have to say, your behavior is pretty strange. Most people would be thrilled.”
“What do you mean?” Sally asked.
“I’m an heir hunter. I find people who are entitled to inherit things and make sure they receive them. In your mother’s case, it’s oil and gas money. And a lot of it.”
Sally’s brown eyes widened. “From where?”
“Your grandparents owned a ranch in southwest Texas. It’s sitting on what they call Juan Garcia Field. Estimates are that your mom’s share, over time, may be worth as much as fifty million US dollars.”
“Wow!” Sally’s eyes grew as big as balloons. Her mouth had formed a large O. “That’s a lot of money!”
“Yes, it is.”
As if her full two dozen years of disappointment crushed down on her enthusiasm all at once, she narrowed her gaze and cocked her head. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. All she has to do is sign the documents in my pocket selling her rights to my client.”
“What happens if she doesn’t?”
He shrugged again. “She loses everything.”
“How can that be true? It’s either hers or it’s not, right?” Sally’s voice was belligerent now. “You’re saying you can just steal it from her if she doesn’t agree to sell right this minute?”
“Not steal, exactly. And not me. I’m just the messenger here.”
Sally folded her hands around a coffee mug on the table and leaned in. “Tell me how this works.”
“Your mother’s land has been abandoned for a long time. Too long, in the eyes of the law. People have been trying to find her for quite a while. And the time for searching is over. Her rights are about to be extinguished.” He shook his head. “It’s now or never.”
Sally nodded, head still tilted, still leaning in. “So, the short version is, if she signs, then she’s rich. If she doesn’t sign, she loses forever?”
“Exactly.”
She looked across the table and met Laura’s eyes. “Seems like a no-brainer to me, Mom.”
“Me, too.” Laura must have felt like she was looking through the mirror of time and staring at her younger self. “Except for one thing.”
“Which is?”
<
br /> Laura went quiet. She lowered her eyes. A tear leaked from one of the corners and rolled down her cheek.
“She’s worried that if she admits who she really is, the US Marshals will come looking for her.” Flint took a quick breath. This was the tricky part, and he hadn’t found the best way to deal with it. “She’s worried she’ll be extradited to Texas to stand trial for the murder of two people, including your father, during that robbery back in 1989. And if she’s convicted, she’s worried that she’ll be executed.”
Sally’s wide-eyed expression returned, but she didn’t appear shocked to hear that her mother was a fugitive. “Surely, after all this time, none of that would happen?”
Flint shrugged. He wasn’t a cop. But he had a conscience and healthy respect for justice. Laura Oakwood had gotten away with murder for way too long. Even if no one reported her to the authorities, if she signed over her rights to the field, a new deed would be recorded. These days, that information would kick out electronically to a dozen different places in cyberspace. This was a big oil field. A lot of money at stake. Enterprising journalists, interested parties, and those who lost out would all have a motive for digging deeper into Laura Oakwood’s background.
She’d be back on the radar. Questions would be asked. Answers would be found. It might take a while, but eventually someone would uncover the truth. A writ of extradition was likely to come knocking.
Sally took a deep breath and held it. After she exhaled, she said quietly, “What are you going to do, Mom?”
Flint could almost see the wheels turning in Laura’s head as she tried to find a way out of her dilemma. Maybe she could work some sort of deal. Maybe she’d find a sympathetic prosecutor. Maybe she’d get the money and run again, hide better, stay gone forever this time.
Regardless, it was long past time for Laura Oakwood to make a choice. Her face twisted, even as she fought her demons. She must have known for her entire lifetime that the pain would one day arrive. That day was now. And the pain was eating her alive.
